Yet again we read in The Guardian that UK applications to study languages are falling. Quelle surprise! We read of the confusing picture of the growing commercial need for businesses to have polyglots on the staff, against the inevitable consequence of modern foreign languages being completely optional rather than compulsory school subjects since 2004.
Que faire? What should we do? Well, clearly no-one is worried enough to actually do very much at all, it seems. University language departments are being allowed to be closed or merged in response to the falling demand for specific languages. Are those businesses requiring languages actually going into schools to 'sell' that desperate need to the nation's first and second-year high school pupils? Probably not. Perhaps if a company director were to change their own mindset and explain to young people how languages are an essential requirement (rather than a handy, exotic add-on), we might see some progress. How many bosses are polyglots themselves? How can they inspire people when the UK's attitude towards jobs for linguists rarely extends beyond the stultifying world of multilingual customer service? As a new graduate with no professional teaching or translation experience, selling stuff in another language was the only option available to me.
Learning foreign languages is also a lifelong process. It does not sit well with the culture of instant gratification the UK demands and expects. The game of gaining qualifications in the UK is characterised by relatively short bursts of intensive study (two years for GCSEs, another two years for A Levels, three years minimum for a degree). When students' parents here in Switzerland ask me how long I've been learning German, my honest answer is now: "About 25 years". I'm still learning. I will never stop learning. It is impossible to completely master the linguistic and cultural totality of a language that is not one's mother tongue. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try!
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